The passage from adolescence to adulthood should result in a wiser human being, one who can look at things and understand intuitively that they make sense or not.
Childhood is fantasyland, and it usually worsens with puberty. The counter for this are rules. The structure and discipline imposed by loving adults help guide the ship of growth through the raging hormone storms to safe harbor somewhere after people wake up in a job or stable family life raising little crazies of their own.
If you ever want to destroy a society, then mess with this process. Disrupt the bond between families and generations. And who better to do this than celebrities, people who play act their whole lives memorizing dialogue fed to them by others?
Are celebrities bad people?
No, but neither are they demigods.
They are the idols childish minds (regardless the age) crave and promoters market. Their overblown importance to our lives reveals a disconnect between the world and God.
The gods children want are powerful stimulants for their imaginations, meaning these celebrigods are seen as getting whatever they want. So they aren’t mortals, and yet somehow, they are able to reach through the Jumbotron or silver screen to give their child-worshipers the intimate affirmation they crave through their amazing surreal performances. With the aid of great sound, scripts, music, and camera closeups, audience-bonds are formed capable of convincing children that if they knew the celebrity personally they would certainly be best buds.
It’s a nice dream.
Where it falls apart is when celebrities step out of their roles and speak what is on their own minds, which usually reveals two things — they believe their own press clippings, and they aren’t very bright outside their field of performance art.
Adults pick up on this.
Not to change the subject, just its perspective a little, I find it interesting that we are told it is possible to have the Ten Commandments written into someone’s heart. In other words for some it isn’t necessary to memorize them in order to follow them. This comes naturally.
And who might these amazing people be?
May I suggest these are mature adults.
There is something powerful and fundamental about The Ten Commandments that transcend religions. I think it has something to do with law and order and the creation of a healthy society.
The reason I bring this up is because the first three commandments deal with the celebrity problem.
The first commandment is to put God first. No other demigods or celebrities are permitted to interfere with God’s bond with his people. The second commandment tells us to not worship anyone or anything but God. Very practical advice if we care about maintaining our sanity. And the third commandment has to do with what we declare about God, whether we tell the truth or not. I know it sounds like prohibiting naughty words, but it’s much deeper than that. It is prohibiting the childish speech that comes out of the mouths of unserious minds and disrespects the God who brings truth, order and love to mankind.
It’s siding with the celebrity side of life.
The New Covenant
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD:
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.
And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.
For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.